MA Governor Latest to Opt Out of Secure Communities; Victory for Community Groups in Key States

Yesterday, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA) announced that his state will not participate in the federal government’s failed “Secure Communities” deportation program. Governor Patrick joins Governor Quinn of Illinois and Governor Cuomo of New York in taking a courageous stand against the flawed enforcement program, and others – like California — seek to find ways out of the agreement.

These groups, and anyone who understands immigrant communities, knows that the Secure Communities program has gone way beyond its stated goal of targeting foreign-born individuals convicted of serious crimes. And thanks to the “Uncover the Truth” campaign led by the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Benjamin H. Cardozo School of Law, they have the numbers to back it up. For example, according to the New York Times:

Official figures from Boston showed that 54 percent of the immigrants deported under the program had no criminal convictions, only civil immigration violations. Only about one in four deportees under the program had been convicted of a serious crime.